NZ Writer – Page 5 – Cristina Sanders' blog

Landed – book review

Landed, by Sue McCauley

I went to the launch of Landed. I took a couple of friends to the Dannevirke Library at 6pm last Friday and the place was heaving. Sue McCauley has a strong local fan base and she can count me in. It felt like the whole town was there and they were all buying her book. Made my heart sing. And then Sue took the chair (kind of perched, she’s little), and entertained us. The microphone was unnecessary, she has a good story-telling voice and she told us some anecdotes, gave out thanks, made some self-deprecating jokes and read from her book. She sort of tried to put us off buying the book, saying there’s no real story, it doesn’t follow proper book rules in terms of structure. Nothing happens. Course she didn’t put anyone off.

Poor People with Money–book review

Poor People with Money, by Dominic Hoey

I really wanted not to like this book. The too-cool-for-school, attention seeking badass author didn’t sound promising, with his snarly comments about moving to Detroit or LA (wooo) because he’s been left out of the NZ lit club. He has a lovely line in his poetry where he is:
…condescended to by people
who have never been punched in the face
which is a brilliant way to categorise people, but a $40k grant? Just saying. When he didn’t make the longlist for the Ockhams this year he said ‘Man there’s dogs they would give that award to over me!’ Thanks. (I’m on the shortlist). What a charmer.

The Lighthouse – book review

The Lighthouse, by Christopher Parker

A book that seems well promoted in social media at the moment, The Lighthouse offers good engagement to keep the pages turning. It did have more of a Young Adult feeling than a grown-up read for me, with spooky but gentle ghosts, a sad but not gruesome mystery, young protagonists and a (pretty chaste) doe-eyed romance.

Iris and Me – book review

Iris and Me, by Philippa Werry

This is a terrific story about a tenacious woman who, in the 1930s, leaves New Zealand with no support and very little cash and reports on a war in China. It’s intelligent young adult fiction (though I don’t qualify as either and I loved it). Despite speaking no Chinese language, having no official capacity, being slightly lame and needing a walking stick, Iris gets right to the front-line and writes on the conditions she finds there. This is Iris Wilkinson, pen name Robin Hyde, who was a New Zealand poet, journalist and novelist. I knew her from her books; I read The Godwits Fly recently, but I had no idea she was such an audacious traveller as well.

Ockhams Digital Sampler

The four finalists of the Jan Medlicott Acorn prize for fiction.

It is such a privilege to be on this year’s Ockham shortlist, along with Michael Bennett, Catherine Chidgey and Monty Soutar. It’s a very happy period, these weeks between the shortlist and the announcement of the winner, which will be on May 17th at the Auckland Writers’ Festival. A girl can dream!

Here is the Ockham Sampler, where you get to read an extract from each of the books for free. If you like what you read, please head to your nearest bookshop and buy the book. Not sure about the others, but I’m saving for a gold frock.

Ockhams Digital Sampler Download

Birnam Wood – book review

Birnam Wood, by Eleanor Catton

Well, I didn’t see that one coming. What an ending! Bloody hell, Eleanor Catton first lulls us with a nice gardening collective and then goes full-on James Bond.

So much has been written about Birnam Wood already and all of it is full of praise: dark and brilliant (the Guardian), an astounding analysis of human psychology (the Spinoff), an explosive climate-change thriller (FT), phenomenal and utterly gripping, electric, spectacular, a complex and absorbing web of human relationships (Various). And yes to all that.

Kāwai – book review

Kawai, by Monty Soutar

We seem to have been waiting such a long time for this book. Kāwai is truly groundbreaking and I hope that it clears the way for more stories in this historical and cultural setting. So what’s the big deal with Kāwai and why has it been so phenomenally successful?

Firstly, no one has published such an epic saga of Māori life before, and the timing now is impeccable. It seems Soutar has been coming all his life to be writing this story now (for such a time as this), when not only does he have the necessary contacts and learning and experience, but there is an audience with a huge appetite for stories and discussions of our history and people. Just look at how the bestsellers lists over the past three or four years have been dominated by things Māori. We’re open and primed for a big, readable Māori story that would have been unthinkable twenty, even ten years ago. And here it is and it’s fascinating.

The Axeman’s Carnival – book review

The Axeman’s Carnival by Catherine Chidgey

Last book of the year and an absolute favourite. I devoured this in a couple of long sessions after Christmas and it’s a splendid read, just perfect to take on holiday (or mooch in the hammock at home ignoring things, as I did). I hand on heart recommend this to anyone. It’s such a great yarn. Very rural kiwi.

Through the Lonesome Dark–book review

Through the Lonseome Dark, by Paddy Richardson

It’s the early 1900s and Pansy is living poor on the West Coast in Blackball, which apparently is a charming town these days. Pansy’s a smart kid. Smarter than her pa. Today you’d hope this would be a positive thing and she would be given every opportunity to make use of her talents, to be educated and offered the chances that would help a small town girl rise to fulfill her potential. You’d hope that someone would notice the bruising on her face and not turn away.

The Fish – book review

The Fish, by Lloyd Jones

This is a family story where an off-the-rails daughter living in a caravan gives birth to a fish. Our narrator (first person, never named, so I’ll call him the Fish’s uncle) is pretty clear about this. The thing being held up to be admired is an oddity, slightly revolting, not quite human. A thing with a gulping lips, a rubbery mouth. With gills, and an overwhelming fishy smell. What kind of creature the baby is we never really learn and this makes the whole story intensely curious. Although the Fish’s uncle refers to ‘it’ and ‘the Fish’ or ‘our Fish’ throughout, the others give it a masculine pronoun and the Fish is named after his grandfather, Colin Montgomery. The Fish grows up and goes to school, leaves school, goes to work in the family junk yard, goes on holiday. He may be a boy with some kind of horrendous congenital disability or the horror may belong to the view of the Fish’s uncle but we, the readers, are unwillingly (for me, anyway) made complicit in the relegation of the Fish to ‘freak’. The Fish is part of the family and loved even, with a kind of every-family-has-its-cross-to bear embarrassment, but an object who is given no internal life of his own. We meet him as onlookers – never communicate directly with him, never try to understand.

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